A mini-festo for the digressive essay: “But I Digress: On The Point Of Not Getting To The Point,” new, now, at Thought Catalog.
The Shining, Stanley Kubrick. Copyright Stanley Kubrick; all rights reserved.
Teaser:
“The digression must wander off the point only to fulfill it,” Lopate insists; in contradistinction, the digressive essay makes a point solely for the purpose of wandering off it. It has no point beyond the starting point it uses as a springboard for free association; it comes to no conclusion, only an end, with a jolt familiar to anyone who has wandered the Web’s infinite regress and come to her senses, lost hours later, unaware of how she got there or where she started, or why.